The cousins are coming! The cousins are coming!

Yesterday while I was in Bellingham my cousin Robin rang and asked if she and her sister Pat could bring my Uncle Bob (a man who has nine lives!) down to Seattle to visit mom on Tuesday? Certainly, I said, What time do you think…? See my mother’s sister Reva married military and so everyone on that limb of the family tree gets up EARLY AS HELL. They’re all teachers and perfect and their yards are out of Sunset Magazine (much of that family has gone to church or is downright Christian whereas my father’s side and my siblings and I never have). Oh, about 11:00 she says.

ELEVEN GD O’CLOCK! My mother doesn’t even get up before noon. I stay up until 4 or 5 AM working on stuff and sleep in, too. Also…let’s just say that I am messy. I am not dirty, just messy with piles of video stuff here, illustration tablets there, books and brushes and prints akimbo. On top of that my mother’s house is like the house of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations with cobwebs and old furniture and missing things that got too ruined and were never replaced. I mean what is the point of getting a new living room couch when Bix LIVES on it with his chin resting on one arm where the fabric is very…encrusted.

Also, I haven’t gotten out and weeded the front beds lately so tonight I got out there and cleaned out the beds and filled the ENTIRE yard waste bin with yard waste — all the way to the top (and it was just picked up this morning). While weeding I didn’t want to disturb two spider webs above the hose’s spigot so I crawled under the shrubbery to turn it on then…realized after I’d watered down the walkways and patio and yard that I’d have to crawl through what was now mud. Check.

I also washed all of the windows on the first floor inside and out. All the while mom and the dogs sat on the window seat watching me work, I mean for hours. This reminds me that while I was growing up my mother worked like a squirrel all over the house and yard, including doing her parents’ yard every week, while I was out getting high or drunk or in trouble or trying on clothes or listening to LPs on my stereo that folded up into a suitcase.  I didn’t do shit, never had chores a bedtime a rule a consequence. I was a wild child who drew pictures when she wasn’t messing around, getting suspended from school, making out.

Tonight I also went to the store and bought brie (the cliche of cheeses!) shot through with bleu cheese, gourmet crackers, fruit, some veges and humus, wine and powdered Greek pastries. Oh, and a bouquet of flowers to…distract from the cobwebs. Will have to set an alarm in order to get up and get ready for what is left of the Waldburger clan (i.e. my Aunt Reva, Uncle Bob’s wife and my mother’s only sibling is passed away). The Waldburger’s: no addicts, no white trash, no lesbians, no gays, no artists who live with their mothers and barely earn enough to pay their medical and car insurances.

And I love them so.

My mother's younger sister Reva who passed away a few years ago.